


a midnight sunrise

by Q (ANONiM0USE)



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Demon Deals, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fun, Identity Issues, Metaverse (Persona 5), Multi, Psychic Abilities, Racism, Secret Identity, Trickster Gods, Triggers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-11-23 09:19:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18149990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANONiM0USE/pseuds/Q
Summary: The world is a cold, callous place in which judgement is not given out by those who claim that they have the right to do so--and instead dealt out by demons and criminals.And god has decided to toy with destiny like a shiny plaything.The rules of this world must be settled, they must be changed for the better.Too bad it must now rely on the selfish whims of an unwitting trickster god and a seer who is not quite what she seems.





	1. over and over (until i disappear)

**OVER AND OVER (UNTIL I DISAPPEAR)**

 

The cards have never been stacked in her favor but for some reason, she’d managed to forget that.

 

She bit her lip, staring down at her losses and broken pawns as his own pieces inched closer to her Queen, ready to kill her--

 

“You know that that’s not what I want, Seer.”

 

She met his cool gaze with anger as she slammed her palms against the table, her retort the same as it had been for centuries it seemed,

 

“And you know that we’ll never give you what you want!”

 

He laughed as ice settled beneath her skin and she summoned a chair out the aether to catch her as her legs gave out.

 

She was growing tired of having to play the same game against the same madman every time she reincarnated but what more could she do? 

 

The Velvet Room had no one to open for and Igor had been lost to her for the past… while. 

 

She looked into the other world forlornly.

 

The boundary between this world and that had been gradually wearing thin and shadows and cowards ran wild… with nothing to stop… Them.

 

“See something interesting?”

 

Kurusu Akira. The Fools Arcana-- brave, impulsive, martyr complex. 

 

He had just wished for something, anything at all, to change his life. 

 

Give him a  _ purpose. _

 

Wishes were prayers too, she supposed.

 

She would gladly answer his.

 

“I just found a new chessboard for us to play with, you monster.”

  
  


* * *

**↢THE TOWER↣**

* * *

 

 

She felt like she was constantly waiting for something to change. To happen, to start.

 

She used think that it was something to do with love or somebody dying but she’d met Shiho and Ann and Ann had the Lovers arcana marked on her soul while Shiho didn’t really have much of anything… It was disorienting to look at her with her third eye for too long.

 

Maybe it would be meeting someone like her.

 

Matching her in life experience or ability.

 

But she didn’t place any bets on it.

 

It wasn’t very often that she met another _hafu_ , much less one with an African parent.

 

And she’d never met anyone who could make things like her and the only other person she’d met with the Sight, as her mother had called it, had fled from her within the week.

 

If she didn’t have Ann or Shiho to believe in, she might honestly have... given the bastard a  _ real  _ reason to flee.

 

But Ann with her sweet tooth and optimistic nature was enough of an excuse to take out her frustrations making melon pan.

 

And Shiho with her non-judgmental eyes and warm hugs was enough to calm and soothe the anger building in her throat.

 

She would have been content like this.

 

Her mother had opted to let her take high school online, saving her from having to deal with Shujin Academy’s bs, but she was notoriously overprotective and leaving the house was an elaborate affair of bodyguards and curfews.

 

Ann and Shiho were well aware of why her mother was the way she was and Kaida understood all too well the dangers of leaving unprotected while her father’s associates continued to run Tokyo’s underbelly.

 

But it was still a nuisance.

 

Everyone knew to fear the Midnight Devil.

 

No one knew to fear the Leiko family.

 

She almost wished that she could hate her father for putting them through this.

 

But she hardly got to see him and every time, without fail, every time he came home and opened his arms wide, she was suddenly the enamoured 12-year old who finally had an answer as to what her daddy looked like leaping into his warm embrace.

 

Last time, he’d smelled like gun-smoke and heavy cologne.

 

He bought her mother’s silence with yen and soft, sweet kisses.

 

He bought hers with a promise he couldn’t keep.

 

“Ouch!”

She snaps back to attention, focusing on Shiho in alarm.

 

“What happened?”

 

“Your eyes...Kaida.. So sharp!”

 

Her lips twitch up in amusement as Shiho pinches her cheek and Ann looks back at the both of them in bemusement.

 

Shiho says nothing until they get to the crepe shop and settle down.

 

“What’re you thinking about, Lucky?”

 

“...My father. He said he’d be back in time to come and see the fireworks with me and my mother.”

 

“... I don’t see the problem here, Kai,” Ann mused aloud, still scanning the glossy menu.

 

Sometimes she really wanted to shout at her friend. Because of course, Ann didn’t get it.

 

Ann could call her father, talk to her mother about him, see hi-envy wasn’t a good color on her.

 

She took a deep breath and pushed the negative emotion out, taking in positivity.

 

“He can’t come back too early without completing the  _ paperwork.  _ His boss will kill him.”

 

She didn’t have to look up to see the understanding cross both their faces.

 

He can’t keep the promise.

 

But he was gone before she could make him agree to something more reasonable.

She’d be a-No, he’d make it.

 

He had Devil’s Luck after all, that’s what he always said.

 

She just had to have faith and keep her head down.

 

* * *

~~ ⇍ FO OLS ARCANA ⇏ ~~

* * *

 

 

He just had to keep his head down for the year.

 

It should have been a simple task but…

 

“Hey! You dropped this, Mister!”

 

The first thing that he notices is her eyes.

 

They’re familiar but alien all at once and possess a golden yellow hue until he blinks and she has two different colored eyes.

 

One’s a pale gold while the other’s a dark amber.

 

She stares at him in surprise, frozen as the world shifts around them.

 

_ My little pawn… The prayer that you whispered to me so ardently… It is well on its way to be answered! _

 

They both turn to meet eyes with an empty throne and some sort of otherworldly being right behind it, its eyes and joker maw fiery blue.

 

The sound of cackling follows them into reality as they shake off the…

 

Whatever that was.

 

He looks back at her, the confusion immediately turning to worry as she whimpers in pain, clutching at her chest as tears leak from her eyes.

 

“...N-not yet..no..Patience…”

 

She looks up at him, an intense expression on her face, 

 

“You need to make your choice. Soon…”

 

It was like she didn’t care about the strange looks that they were starting to get as she suddenly snatched the lapels of his shirt and tugged him closer to her face.

 

He couldn’t get out of her grasp.

 

“What choice?,” he croaked.

 

She smirked before her face fell, her grasp loosening as she fell forward into the sidewalk. Judging from the resulting gasps and the steadily widening gap in the crowd, he couldn’t just call for help and pretend he didn’t know her.

 

Not that he knew anyone but Sojiro.

 

“... Damn it.”


	2. step out, something i wanna know (see me in the daylight)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiho develops more of a personality, a Vow is made and a step closer to Ruinous Truth has been taken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (if you haven't played the game past Kamoshida or haven't finished the last boss battle, this ain't it chief. if you want SPOILERS though, have fun, buckle up and hold onto to your bottle of ultra-smooth vodka)

* * *

↢THE TOWER↣

* * *

 

 

Her head was splitting in two.

 

She could taste crimson from where she’d bitten her tongue.

 

It was like she was at war with herself.

 

It didn’t make sense…

 

She’d been fine until she met with…

 

She’d been fine until he’d shown up…

 

It was all _his fault!_

 

Kurusu Akira…

 

What had he done?

 

What had he chosen?

 

How dare he disrupt her carefully content life?

 

She didn’t want to change!

 

She must!

 

He was her pawn! What kind of leader waited from the sidelines while her men lived and died at her beck and call!?

 

She was no coward!

 

She was in pain!

 

He hadn’t chosen anything yet!

 

She was being far too presumptuous!

 

How annoying that a mere conversation had inspired such a negative reaction.

 

///several hours ago///

  


She’d come to in an odd fashion--yelling, although the bed felt familiar, she took a moment to recognize the voices.

 

“She’d passed out after handing me the wallet-”

 

_Tch, the kid’s already causing trouble…_

 

“What’d you do to Kaida?!”

 

Ann’s voice. She sounded like she was on the verge of angry tears again.

 

Two men’s-gruff and odd-sounding v. a young and disgruntled...Her head hurt too much to suss out a motive for either of them.

 

And yet she made her way down the stairs, relishing in the dimness of the hallway as she used the wall as an anchoring point, blearily taking in the scene unfolding in what appeared to be a coffee shop.

 

She’d been correct on the assessment of the angry tears but shocked at how quickly they subsided upon seeing her up and moving.

 

“KAIDA!,” she darted for her arms open and Kaida, seeing that death was coming for her with open arms, immediately sidestepped but Ann anticipating this, followed suit and dragged her into a much needed but embarrassing hug.

 

“You act like I died, Annie,” she joked, quickly growing alarmed as the tears came back with a vengeance.

 

_Her friend’s a bit over-dramatic but there’s no doubt about it… I couldn’t find a pulse…_

 

_I wonder if she still remembers that...Vision..?_

 

“His name is Arsene,” she muttered as her head gave a vengeful throb, making her way to the stools by the counter, deciding to rest her forehead on the icy wood.

 

“You weren’t breathing, Kai… That old man couldn’t find a pulse…”

“Hey!,” the old man in question half-heartedly protested before grumbling under his breath about something.

 

Ann sighed as she rubbed her back comfortingly, even as the words struggle to penetrate the fog round her brain.

 

The Hermit. The Lovers. The Fool. All of her ----- gathered together--wait, she’d stopped breathing?

 

Slowly alarm starts to trickle past the sense of satisfaction that couldn’t possibly belong to her and she lifted her head from the counter, heart in her throat as she rasped,

 

“Did you tell my mother?”

 

Ann lost the color in her face as she realized the mistake.

 

“No, I..I’d called your guard...Liam...He’d… He thought you were in the library..”

 

She could feel her freedom slipping through her fingers.

 

She’d truly been in the library...She had been spotted by some ~~assholes~~ ruffians though and they’d chased her from her spot into the street.

 

Then she’d bumped into a guy wearing the Shujin Academy uniform, accidentally making him drop his wallet, but he’d looked away from her and went on his way.

 

There was a great deal of things that she could tolerate--name calling, even beatings. But she absolutely couldn’t _stand_ it when anyone pretended that she didn’t exist.

 

It made her ~~_pissed off_~~ see red.

 

She went after him, holding onto his wallet and making her way through the crowd, not thinking to inform anyone of where she was going, it hadn’t even occurred to her that he might be dangerous…

 

And when she’d finally caught up to him....

 

She groaned out in pain as a glass jar of coffee fell off the shelf.

 

It felt like there was a vise on her head!

 

“I can’t breathe…”

 

A fist in her chest squeezes and squeezes and she whimpers for a moment before something _snaps_ and the world is crystal clear.

 

She takes in a slow breath, inviting it into her lungs in relief and she feels a sense of calm knowledge.

 

“...Ann, I’d like to go home please. Kusuru-san, thank you for keeping me safe. Sojiro-san, my mother, Leiko Hana, sends her regards.”

 

“...How do you know my name?,” Kusuru asks and the calm immediately disappears as her eyebrows furrow and she tries to remember where she’d heard it.

 

“Um...I..I’m a psychic!,” she tries to make it a joke, nobody except for Ann and Shiho had ever believed her when she’d--

 

“Alright. What am I thinking?”

 

...He wasn’t joking.

 

“I don’t think I can…”

 

_Do you remember what you saw on the street?_

 

“Yes..I remember.”

 

She’d never been able to hear people’s thoughts this clearly before...What had...What was wrong with her?

 

_Arsene is that thing’s name?_

 

“I… You’re making me look like I’m crazy and I don’t appreciate it!,” she scolded, strangely frightened of having to answer that question.

 

It made her heart pound.

 

“I’ve..I have to go now! I’m already in trouble with my mother as it is… Thank you once again for your help… But..Um..Let’s never meet again!”

 

She bowed politely before she tugged Ann out of the cafe and into her bedroom.

 

She blinked, releasing her friend’s wrist as she took in where she’d apparently teleported…

 

“I…”

 

“Kaida, how are you..Doing all this?”

 

She groaned angrily as she sank onto the floor,

 

“If I knew that, don’t you think that I’d walk home or teleport anywhere else?”

 

“It’s like...Your powers are going through puberty again!”

 

“Ann...Don’t describe me possibly turning into a psychic bomb like that ever again. At the very least, I’m not about to fall in love with every person with a fashion sense again.”

 

“You never did answer whether or not you had a crush on me or Shiho that one-Ack!”  


She was cut off by a swift pillow to the face.

 

“At least, possible telepathy is cool.”

 

///present time///

 

She’d been able to talk her way out of not losing every bit of her freedom but in exchange, she’d had to increase the number of bodyguards she had to tow around.

 

And she also had to attend the Shujin Academy class etiquette club, use their library and avoid some creep called Kamoshida.

 

As well as Akira.

 

She still doesn’t know why she knows his name.

 

And there’s something deeply irritating about him.

 

And it gives her a proper _~~fucking~~ _headache.

 

It only gets worse whenever she considers the dream.

 

_She floats in darkness, half asleep as the world drifts past her, the feeling of thin spidery threads dragging along her face comforting in a strange way._

 

_“For a supposed demon of chaos, you seem to despise sudden change that you haven’t accounted for.”_

 

_A voice that sounded both metallic, ageless and familiar interrupts her peace casually and it’s like she’s been yanked out of her own body._

 

_“And for a benevolent god, you seem to enjoy torturing all of your innocent creations,” her voice replied smoothly._

 

_A raspy, painful grinding of metal sheets that she somehow recognizes at laughter then the voice speaks once more,_

 

_“I must maintain control over them.”_

 

_“Then what was the purpose of free will, Yaldabaoth? Of the fair game that you swore to both Igor and I?”_

 

_“Humans deserve all that I have to offer them.”_

 

_“All you have to offer is ruin!”_

 

_“And what of you? A demon can’t possibly rule over these people. I spared you because you under my heel is a far better outcome than being absorbed like that pesky Lavenza.”_

 

_“... Play a game with me then. I’ll-”_

 

The words caught in her throat and she woke up, coughing violently as the world around her spun, racing to the bathroom as she gagged.

 

AS she splashed cold water on her burning skin, she caught herself in the mirror and screamed in terror.

 

Her eyes…

 

The pupils…

 

They were catlike, narrow and surrounded by an eerie red glow which only made her shudder at how unnatural having two amber irises felt.

 

She blinked and they were back to normal.

 

Mismatched and human pupils.

 

Glancing at the glowing red 3:30 AM, she groaned and tried to close her eyes.

 

That day was already off to a _brilliant_ start.

  


* * *

~~⇍ FOOLS ARCANA ⇏~~

* * *

 

  


That week was already off to a great start.

 

He’d run into that strange _hafu_ girl, gotten scolded by the blonde and Sojiro, missed half a day of school with whatever strange bullshit that strange app had conjured (although he’d finally gotten an answer as to what that vision’s name was) and now he was steadily diving headfirst into trouble.

 

Not that he was truly complaining.

 

An odd part of him strangely missed it.

 

“Are you Suzui Shiho?”

 

She glanced up at him as she lingered by the library entrance, the black eye startlingly obvious despite an attempt at concealing it and with the allegations and everything he’d seen in the Palace-

 

“Kusuru-san, is there something that you want?”

 

“...I wanted to ask you some questions about Kamoshida.”

 

She flinched back away from the name almost immediately.

 

But before he could press for anything else, a familiar pair of voices arguing heatedly comes closer,

 

“Ann, I swear to goodness that you’re being unreasonable! How was I supposed to know that he was-”

 

“It’s how he introduces himself, Kaida!”

 

“I thought it was some as-rowdy child, a son of his, perhaps! I didn’t know it was a dang teacher!”

 

“I told you to...Shiho!,” Ann momentarily lights up upon seeing her other friend before she looks at him in mild confusion.

 

“What’re you two talking about?”

 

“He was just..Um..”

 

Shiho visibly struggled to come up with a way not to tell Ann but he’s not about to let her lie rest on his conscience.

 

“I was asking her if she got that black eye from Kamoshida.”

 

“You… Shiho...I..”

 

“... _Is_ that where you got it from Shiho?,” the ice in Kaida’s voice is enough to make everyone look at her and immediately look away.

 

If he could, he’d follow suit.

 

Her eyes pierce into his, almost making it harder to breathe as she stalks toward Shiho and gently swipes her thumb over the makeup, clearing it off.

 

“I-”

 

Shiho chokes as Kaida silently cries, her eyes staring into hers, the tears spilling over even as she remains stony and chillingly pissed.

 

“Don’t lie to me, Shiho. _Please_.”

 

“I..I’m not. I promise.”

 

“Swear to me on our friendship that your bruise was a mere accident, he didn’t lay a hand on you. Tell me right here that you think that I’m cr..I’m crazy for even bringing this up! And I promise you that I’ll drop it. I won’t talk to you about it ever again. I swear it.”

 

Shiho visibly shivered at Kaida’s intense stare, wetting her lips before she opened her mouth and froze.

 

“...I...It was from practice. I just got hit in the face with a volleyball.”

 

“I… Alright. Fine. I’ve got to return a book,” Kaida released her coldly and went around her, no longer meeting her eyes as Ann looked like she’d just watched her dog get run over, brushing past him like a ghost, quietly whispering,

 

“I’ll come by Leblanc later today.I can help with your little investigation.”

 

And so she disappeared into the library stacks as Shiho visibly deflated and Ann tried to put on a strong facade.

 

“See? Shiho isn’t lying and you should stop digging into the volleyball team. You’re stirring up trouble for everyone.”

 

As they turned away, he faced the library, resolving to at least find something to fill the space between studying and dealing with completely failing at being an average student.

 

He almost immediately regrets it, feeling it rather than hearing it as the whispers start up once again.

 

“..What’s someone like him doing here?”

 

“What if he’s after that African hafu? I saw her brush past him..”

 

“That bitch deserves it! She’d…”

 

“A psychopath in the library..”

 

“Hush, hush, he’s looking this way..”

 

“Eep, he’s so scary!”

 

He turned to face the quietly, muffled snickering and met amused mismatched irises.

 

“I do hope that you don’t mind allowing me finding humor in that situation, Kusuru-san. And to properly introduce myself… My name is Leiko Kaida. But my friends usually call me Lucky or Kai.”

 

“Lucky,” he tries before she interrupts.

 

“We aren’t friends,” she calls as she wanders deeper into the stacks, trailing her index along the spines.

 

Pausing as he doesn’t seem to be following along with her, she glances at him with a secretive smirk,

 

“Yet.”

 

“Thrilling,” he says drily.

 

She straightens as she finds one that piques her interest, a book with gold vines and blood red pages, _The Compendium of Waking: A Study in Dreams and Metaverse Visions_.

 

“As flattering as it would be to assume that you followed me in here to chat or get to know me better, Kusuru-san-”

 

“Call me Akira, Kaida-san.”

 

Her lips twitch up in a slight smile as her eyes narrow,

 

“Alright then, Akira-san,” she drawled lazily.

 

“Can I recommend you a book?”

 

“Sure. That is the only reason I came here,” he teased.

 

“Hmm, I can absolutely see that right now. You’re at a reading desk at the moment, poring over…”

 

She slid a black book out of a shelf to her left,holding it up so he can read the title.

 

“ _An Elegant Guide to Thievery and Sabotage_?”

 

He takes it from her as she also hands him, _Zorro the Outlaw_ and _Pirate Legend_ ,

 

“You look like you need it…”

 

Her voice gets softer but he can still hear the question,

 

“Haven’t you met Arsene, after all?”

 

She winks at him before she saunters off to checkout her books.

 

It’s the first step towards ruin.

 

The first step towards salvation.

  


**_I am thou_ **

**_Thou art I_ **

**_Thou hast acquired a blood oath_ **

**_That shall deepen into an unbreakable vow_ **

**_Here and now_ **

**_With the birth of the Tower arcana,_ **

**_You hast acquired the wind beneath_ **

**_Your wings of rebellion_ **

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {SOME MILD HOUSEKEEPING}
> 
> Here's hoping that I didn't miss there being a Tower Arcana in the game and thus all the tarot card research is wasted because honestly Death would have been Lucky's best bet as an Arcana (as you'll see why in a few chapters) but I love the punk doctor of death too much. 
> 
> Ann and Shiho are hard for me to write, simply because of how two things:  
> 1) Ann's character comes off as super emotional and empathetic but she also seems to struggle with knowing what to say at the right times but her sweet tooth and all out attack portrait portray her as fun-loving and cute, while on the other hand, her Persona and outfit says that there's something a little darker to her than bad flirting and the occasional death threat.  
> 2) Shiho's survival and character are puzzling to me. Like how high up was that building that she was able to essentially walk it off, reveal some plot heavy details and pass out for 2 weeks but thought that it was enough to end her life? (I might be misunderstanding some things there but I'm also going to rewrite the events leading up to it, so that Ann's guilt over it doesn't feel quite so contrived/obviously written into her) And Shiho being a sweet girl isn't really seen, only mentioned in the Wikia and by Ann.
> 
> Let's also talk about Yaldabaoth, the crotchety old man, God of Order, good ole dickless over here.  
> To pardon my English, he's an entire bitch. He wasn't even about to be the Big Bad in this until I realized that if I'm about to write-
> 
> "Whoa, whoa, and dare I say, whoa."
> 
> Yeah, the Spoiler Police. A bunch of self-righteous killjoys is what they are.
> 
> "But the suspense! The aesthetic--"
> 
> But anyway, in this story, Shadows are Shadows and the boss monsters are Monsters. Demons are an entirely different group.  
> Gods, so they call themselves, are birthed from a century's worth of Treasure buried deep within Mementos, alternatively they can also be made by another God's Desire becoming twisted and corrupted.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Lover climbs up, up, up  
> The Tower spirals down, down, down  
> And an innocent Shadow is cast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //suicide warning//

* * *

❣LOVERS❣

* * *

 

 

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Shiho was lying to them but for her to maintain the lie that she’d told Ryuuji, Ann and had probably been about to tell to the transfer student in the face of Kaida’s intensity...

 

When they finally fixed everything, the fact that she’d done that wouldn’t be so easily laughed off.

 

It also didn’t help matters that Shiho seemed to realize this as well.

 

Or that the only thing she could think of to get her mind off of things was…

 

It was volleyball.  _ Kamoshida’s  _ domain.

 

But Shiho hadn’t done anything but talk about how excited she was to be in the starter position, the possibility of getting a scholarship...Of having someone notice her…

 

One thing that they had all agreed never to fight about was attention.

 

Ann knew why--it was easier to pretend that they were on equal playing fields if they didn’t ever talk about the way that the outside world didn’t affect them.

 

It was why she’d never directly asked Shiho where she got the bruises from, why she never said anything when Kaida got into one of her moods, left at home with nothing to do but smoke and drink and pretend like words didn’t stick.

 

The adults of this world had betrayed all of them in different ways and Ann was well aware of how unscathed she was in comparison.

 

She wasn’t as obsessive over schedules like Kaida, she didn’t miss days like she did.

 

She didn’t get nightmares like Shiho, who woke up every hour a scream on her lips.

 

All she really did was minor…

 

It really didn’t matter.

 

It was only a little bit of sugar.

 

And it’s not like it was very often..

 

And her metabolism would take care of it..

 

“Miss...What would you like to order?”

 

And if it didn’t…

 

“What kind of desserts do you recommend?”

 

Then…

 

She made herself sick enough as it was. 

 

* * *

↢THE TOWER↣

* * *

 

 

She hated being left alone.

 

It was… It was like having to enter her mother’s office again whenever a teacher accused her of being rude or inconsiderate or uncouth.

 

Her mother always, without fail, reminded her that she was a young lady, weak and fragile, she just needed to wait for someone to notice how lovely she was, how sweet and kind and what a good wife she’d make.

 

It made her sick.

 

The idea of having children. The idea of being trapped in someone else’s arms every night, of being unable to-

 

The relief that always came whenever anyone called her ugly quickly came and went.

 

She didn’t want to be trapped.

 

But it didn’t mean that she didn’t want to be loved.

 

She remembered being young and sitting far too close to the TV, feeling the staticky radiation tickle her cheeks like what she imagined love felt like.

 

She’d tried to hug her mother that time.

 

Her face wouldn’t stop stinging for an hour afterwards.

 

She needed to keep up appearances.

 

It was why she always basked in the days when Shiho got sick.

 

Terribly cruel of her to be absolutely ecstatic when her very best friend was feverish and cold.

 

But she was  _ clingy  _ when she was sick.

 

She hugged her arms around herself, remembering the last time that Shiho needed to be taken care of. She’d buried her face in Kaida’s neck with such a soft whimper, her arms tight around her neck as she trembled.

 

She’d felt so  _ warm _ .

Kaida couldn’t get that out of her head for days.

Shiho holding her…

 

She was a terrible human being.

 

But she was always so cold and empty…

 

Then she needed to keep busy!

 

It had worked wonderfully.

 

Project after project, lesson after lesson… Until she hardly even remembered what Ann sounded like or what color Shiho’s hair was.

 

Ann had scolded her and Shiho had given her a baleful look, so there were days when she’d clear the whole day just for them.

 

They knew better than to stand her up.

 

And Ann had a key for when she came early enough to catch Kaida in the midst of trying to get out of bed.

 

Which was really just her blinking up at the ceiling.

 

Ann had lived in America for a while and had brought back their views on mental health.

 

But Kaida still felt terrible for not being a good hostess.

 

She was the one inviting them after all.

 

Some days, she just wanted to cancel. Not to return to the schedule.

 

But to just lie there and sleep.

 

She was always tired when she woke up.

 

And today was worse.

 

~~ Because Shiho was  _ lying  _ and now they had to go on a dumb adventure just to find out why. ~~

 

Because Shiho wasn’t sick. She’d heard her mother complain about having to use one of her precious payroll guards to babysit someone just because Shiho didn’t want to see Kaida.

 

So of course, she had to ask Ann if she’d done anything, if Kaida had irrevocably ruined everything.

 

~~ Again ~~

 

And since she’d offered, Ann would be riding with her in Liam’s fancy American car.

 

She should have never gotten out of bed that morning.

 

* * *

❣LOVERS❣

* * *

 

 

Kaida was lighting up a cigarette in her room, glaring at nothing as she drummed her pencil against the sketchpad that she and Shiho had bought her a few years ago. 

She was blaring electronic hip-hop music and swayed her hips to it every now and then as Ann simply observed her for a while, letting older memories wash over her--

“Y’know it’s rude to stare at people, Annie.”

 

There’s a smile on her face but the shadows in her eyes, the glowing red of the deathstick, and her newly bandaged knuckles tell a different story.

And she doesn’t know enough about the current Lucky to know if she can ask.

 

“...Yeah. I..Um, the driver says that the car’s ready.”

 

Lucky takes a long drag before she blows the smoke out of the window, watching the tendrils dissipate before she snuffs the cigarette out with her new shoes.

 

“Tell him to give me 20. I don’t feel like wearing this outfit in public.”

 

Ann takes a moment to observe the outfit--it’s all black, some sparks of lavender are present but there’s the main elements of the outfit..fishnet knee socks, combat boots, black shorts with silver chains and a black long-sleeve shirt with purple dragons.

 

It fits the _yanki_ -goth look that Kaida enjoys and like other times, Ann doesn’t quite understand why she insists on wearing more neutral colors in public.

 

“...Alright, I’ll be downstairs waiting.”

  
  


“...Yeah.”

 

She heads downstairs, feeling, now more than ever, that she’s just said the wrong thing.

 

* * *

↢THE TOWER↣

* * *

 

 

Her skin always felt like it was too small around Ann.

 

It didn’t help that she was gorgeous, a sweetheart and seemed to be absolutely terrified of being alone with Kaida.

 

_ -ha ha, what’d you do to scare ann you f _ r _ e _ **_a_ ** _ k? _

 

She shook the voice off, exhaling deeply as she stood in front of her closet, catching her reflection in the mirror.

 

The other her looked as exhausted as she felt. The cutesy pink lingerie set that she’d bought really didn’t feel like it suited her. But neither did the red one that she’d desperately wanted. And plus, nobody would see either in her safe, soft brown sweater and patchwork jeans.

 

She swiped some strawberry lip gloss she’d heard some of Ann’s classmates praise and she couldn’t help but try and see if it tasted like strawberries.

 

“Nope,” she gagged.

 

It didn’t taste very good either… And even, she knew that she was just prolonging the inevitable.

 

“Alright, enough dicking around, Kai!”

 

Her reflection pointed back at her with a disbelieving eyebrow raised.

 

Luckily Ann chooses that moment to not-so-gently hurry her along.

 

“Kaida, please-!”

 

She slides down the banister, rabbit hoodie in hand as she interrupts Ann’s warning. 

Just like when she still went to the same school.

“Aah~ Nostalgia, no?,” she laughed dramatically, purposefully playing up her reactions to things as that feeling of anxious dread resurfaced, making Ann snort as they headed into the open backseat, Kaida pausing to appropriately apologize for exceeding the self-imposed time limit.

 

“Ha-ha, it’s alright, little Lady! Your mother’s worse. One time, she had me waiting for an extra hour and a half! It runs in the family.”

 

She sincerely hoped nothing else was inherited.

 

But she laughed good-naturedly as she let him close the door shut, careful to suppress the flinch that arose.

 

There was a thin line between familiar silence and uncomfortable and as they approached Shiho’s little apartment, it was starting to cross that border and Kaida would have been relieved if she didn’t suddenly smell something _rotting_.

 

“Gah!,” she choked as Ann’s eyes widened and they both escaped the car, Kaida’s stomach desperately working to expel anything, something, as she stumbled towards the entrance.

 

She paused by the doorstep as Ann looked around for the spare key, gagging for another moment before she settled with spitting out what had accumulated and accepting the gum that Ann offered in solidarity.

 

It wasn’t the first time that human suffering had made her sick and the idea that Shiho was suffering in any way pissed them both off.

 

Ann silently held up the keys, letting her use the anger to anchor her past the swirling sickness, and unlocked the door with a definitive click the moment that she nodded.

 

Everything that had once been normal took on a much more ghastly light, the stairs that had been familiar creaky announcements felt too loud and the dishes in the sink dripped with some sort of red sauce.

 

Too much like blood, she thought morbidly as Ann started to call for Shiho to answer, to come down, to show herself,  _ something _ .

 

Anything.

 

She didn’t want to go up the stairs anymore.

 

But she joined Ann at the top, looking down at the wooden floor, a sudden image of herself lying broken at the feet of the stairs, red against the pale wood, making her avert her eyes quickly,

 

The scent of rotting is now accompanied with Shiho’s voice sobbing.

 

Loud and painfully, it punches her in the chest and she shoves the door open, not thinking to check if Ann can hear the same.

 

Her eyes take it in before her brain can process what exactly she’s looking at and she’s on the floor before she can catch herself.

 

Shiho’s toenails are still blue from their last sleepover and she’s mesmerized by the way the color catches the light as her feet hang above the floor.

 

She can still remember the way Shiho made fun of herself for still enjoying Kitty Woman and the way that the company-branded nightgown had felt soft against her skin the first time she’d slept over and had nothing to change into.

 

Ann’s wailing sounds like it’s coming from underwater and a million miles away but she still turns her far-too heavy head to look and her heart thumps as she sees her other friend quietly crying.

 

Her friends are really good at quiet crying.

 

Shiho was..Had been..Shiho…

 

She reached up a trembling hand, she had to make sure, she had to-!

 

Her hand meets solid, cool flesh.

 

Her voice is just as cool as she pulls out her phone and tells the operator Shiho’s address, that she commited suicide by hanging herself and she doesn’t give a flying fuck about the shock, she just wants somebody to come and get her friend’s...Come and get her friend.

 

She hangs up after the operator tries to get her to  _ breathe  _ and in a tiny bit of insanity, she gets up and throws her phone out of the window.

 

It dies with a crack that she imagines hearing.

 

Like her heart.

 

* * *

❣LOVERS❣

* * *

 

 

Kaida took care of everything. 

 

She contacted Shiho’s parents about what had happened, staying on the phone and giving them the non-psychic version of everything that had happened earlier that day, promising that she’d take care of Shiho’s memoriam since they truly couldn’t come back from their humanitarian project.

 

She made sure to rub Ann’s back perfunctorily in between the phone calls and paperwork that they both needed to fill out.

 

Shiho had been dead since 8 A.M. this morning and at the news, Kaida’s eyes had glazed over and she hadn’t looked the same since that had been explained.

 

They probably would’ve still been at the station, letting Kaida continue to bury her reaction in the work as her knee bounced insistently calling attention to the steadily fraying composure that Kaida kept a death-grip on…

 

Except Kamoshida called her.

 

She stared at the phone for a moment, lingering between answering, asking him what the hell he’d done to Shiho and mimicking Kaida’s act of flinging her phone into the nearest wall.

 

The glare that Kaida sent to the phone was enough to give her the push she needed to decline the call, her golden eyes absolutely chilling and bloodthirsty immediately dimming the moment that his caller ID disappeared.

 

“10:00,” she noted, feeling so much more exhausted as the full weight of the day settled on her shoulders.

 

Kaida paused from typing and glanced at the clock before standing gracefully and gently lifting her up,

 

“Let’s get out of here. We’ve been here for 7 hours… Far too long on a school night,” she stated dismissively as they walked out into the night.

 

“...Ann.. Can you call the driver? Tell him anywhere you want to go for the night, I’ve already informed Mother that I won’t be in tonight or tomorrow.”

 

She couldn’t do anything to help Kaida. 

But she could do this..

She took her to LeBlanc.

 

Letting the normality of the atmosphere sink into both of them, Kaida finally showed a sign of cracking: she put her face in her hands, letting her rigidly polite posture die down into a slouch for a moment.

 

Her hand was literal millimeters away from her shoulder when the old man comes by and demands that they order something and any sign of Kaida’s true emotions were wiped clean and her back straightened.

 

“One House Special please.. Ann, do you want something sweet?”

 

“Yes,” she said without thinking.

 

Sugar was her go-to in stressful situations and Shiho…

 

She couldn’t help the tears from falling and Kaida shooed the man away from their table with an icy glare, handing her a box of tissues that she got from nowhere.

 

They hadn’t had the chance to experiment with them yet… They had been planning to wait for their sleepover next week…

 

And..

 

“There’s so much I still wanted to do with her there… She would have been my maid of honor… I would’ve had two.”

 

“I wanted to tease her about her first boyfriend..”

 

“I wanted to threaten him..”

 

She laughed a little wetly but Kaida didn’t meet her eye.

 

“... I wanted to believe her… When she lied to me…”

 

The temperature drops as Ann swallows painfully, finally noticing how secluded they are from the few, lingering patrons and the door.

 

“... But that was obviously a mistake. Both in asking her and wanting to believe. I’m not willing to make that mistake again, Ann.”

 

Her eyes are a bottomless, aching void, devoid of emotion as she vows,

 

“So I’m not going to ask you.”

 

Ann doesn’t know how to react to the bloodthirsty glint that enters her eye as she finishes,

 

“But you can’t blame me for anything I do without the full picture. Promise?”

 

Ann can do nothing but agree.

 

“I promise. I won’t blame you. But you have to at least give me a chance to see what I can do and let me help you.”

 

“Deal.”

 

“...Coffee for you two ladies,” the old man’s gruff voice is softer as he sets the cups down.

 

“...Thanks.”

 

“Thank you.. I’m sorry that you had to see that, mister..”

“Hey, it’s alright.. Students these days have got a really hard time, I hear.”

 

"You don't know the half of it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. This feels like a chapter I'll rewrite later.
> 
> Kamoshida will show up later and originally I'd tried to shoehorn Akira into this but he didn't want to cooperate and Kaida's emotional state needed the groundwork of being "abandoned" in an emotional period and being allowed to repress her emotional reactions. Ann gets to be the crying friend, in Kaida's mind and she needs to be the responsible, put together one.
> 
> And also Shiho....Is dead. But still part of the story.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been on a Persona kick recently and I desperately needed to mess with it.  
> This is meant to be for shits and giggles but not quite so far as a crack fic.


End file.
